What do marketing and science have in common?
How can we combine the two to better build our brand reputations?
The answer to these questions are: they have the human brain in common. And when we combine the two together, we have a recipe for success.
You’re about to go where no marketer has gone before.
Are you ready?
Our brains have learned how to react to spamminess. When it’s exposed to too much commercialism and “selly sell selling,” it shuts down. The brain stops all communication with that message trying to get your attention.
So how do you take advantage of psychology in your marketing? You have to be a smart marketer, not a boring one.
The boring marketer
The boring marketer doesn’t understand the dire need to capitalize on their marketing in ways that are new, fresh, and different to their target audience.
Instead, they come back again with the same marketing strategies from a decade ago. When it doesn’t work, they just push the message harder and try to wear down the few remaining people that are listening to them.
The smart marketer
You’re a smart person. I have no doubt in my mind that you are. You’ve chosen to participate in one of the most stressful jobs that you can have, are constantly changing and adapting, measuring and comparing analytics, etc. And you’re doing this all because you want more results, better results!
That’s what smart marketers do, right?
In fact, the smartest marketer will understand that there is a psychological trigger involved in creating that sale or adding that subscriber to their list and they take the necessary actions to get their audience to do so.
The smart marketer realizes that what may have worked yesterday, may not work today. People are always changing. Their likes and dislikes evolve, and as a great marketer, you understand that you have to roll with the changes.
So why not involve more science and psychology in your marketing? Learn more about the brain and human behavior. Understanding the actual triggers that get a brain to make a decision will make it all the more easier to get customers to convert.
I want to explain some action triggers that smart marketers are successfully success. This is where you can start using psychological marketing to your advantage.
Repetitive marketing
Have you ever watched a television commercial that had a phone number on the screen?
Sure you have.
But what you may not have realized is that when the announcer speaks over the commercial, they usually give you the number not once, but three times.
That’s significant. It’s not twice, it’s not four times. And it’s three for a reason.
The repetition from the commercial is now ingrained in your memory. It’s like having a song so stuck in your head that you start singing it without realizing.
Use repetition with your marketing messages to help your audience remember them.
How to do it
Repetitive marketing can work really well on social media.
The main thing to remember is to stay consistent with everything. Your message, your content, your brand, and your engagement. You’re indirectly “selling” every time you help someone, or write a great article solving someone’s problem.
Something else to concentrate on is sticking to whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. Set a blogging schedule and stick to it. Visit your most successful social channels every day, and stick to that strategy.
Do that over and again, and you’ll start to see the psychological effects of repetition. Your followers will see you as someone that’s helpful, with knowledge and stability. Because when your ideas are consistently there, people become attached to that idea.
The comprehension factor
There are all types of psychological ways to improve the clarity of your message, so your audience better understands it.
You can do so either logically or emotionally.
Under the umbrella of these two comprehension factors lies a whole community of triggers and responses that are lying around in the human brain.
Let me explain the logical side first. These are the ways you can reach people using this frame of mind.
Left-brained marketing
Let’s brush up. The left side of the brain is known for controlling the right side of the body, and the more academic sides of the brain.
Left-brained marketing describes products and services from a practical standpoint. It talks about what you get, why you need it, and why no one else does it like they do.
In the article above, they explain how facts, testimonials, and other truths and hard evidence that make us realize that this is the right product for us to purchase.
Appeal to this side of the brain by stating facts to the reader. If they do this one thing, this other thing will happen. Cut and dry, no sugar coating. That’s the way it is.
It’s a pretty straightforward approach that most marketers use today. And while that used to work a lot back in the day, today’s consumer’s attention span makes that a lot harder.
Can the logical approach be used alone to grab sales? Sure.
When you can make your case in the few seconds the audience is paying attention, it will work.
However, it works better when coupled with creating emotion. That’s going to put you on the road to faster conversions and more customers.
How to do it
Tell it like it is. Show your audience why they need your product, how they could use it, and what it can do for them.
The right-brained marketer
The right side of your brain is where creativity is stored. Right-brained marketing doesn’t necessarily sell the product, but the dream.
Your product is only a bridge to take the customer where they want to go.
When appealing to this, focus on building a robust and personality-rich social marketing plan that spreads brand awareness and gets people talking about the product. They use a massive amount of visuals. They’re focused less on the product, and more on the person using the it. That drives a connection.
How to do it
Visuals are your friend when it comes to getting people to connect with your product or service.
If you were trying to sell a timeshare in Florida, you wouldn’t show an image of the condo, but rather of a family having fun and making memories on the beach, with the condo in the background.
You are painting an image in the reader’s head of the result you want them to be thinking about after they do whatever it is you’re wanting them to do.
It’s connecting them on an emotional level.
Final thoughts
You need to use all of the tools that you have at your disposal.
A carpenter wouldn’t go to work with just a hammer and nail, without a tape measure, pencil, and saw. Even though he’s known for the hammer and nail, these other tools help him get the whole job done.
If you aren’t using science and psychology in your marketing today, then you aren’t using all of the tools at your disposal.
When creating your campaigns, ask yourself these questions:
- How does this factually make the case for your product?
- Does this move me on any level, does it make me feel something?
Having conversations will level the playing field and help you to understand what you need to say and do to help your customers. From there, it’s a fine-tuning process.
This is all one small step for science, one giant leap for the marketing industry.
